Facebook’s Head of Instagram, Mr. Adam Mosseri has unveiled new features coming to the platform as the social media network focuses on video, messaging, creators, and shopping enhancements.
Mr. Mosseri cited YouTube and TikTok as major competitors, as well as new businesses. In the future, Instagram will display users recommendations, emphasizing posts in their Feed that they may not be following. These suggestions will be made in accordance with their preferences.
Specifically, Mr. Mosseri stated that Instagram intend to display users full-screen videos in their feeds. This includes videos it suggests to users, including those from accounts they haven’t yet discovered. In the next months, users will see Instagram’s tests with these adjustments, he said.
“We’re no longer a photo-sharing app or a square photo-sharing app. There’s pretty stiff competition right now. TikTok is huge, YouTube is even bigger, and there are a lot of other upstarts,” said Mr. Mosseri.
Instagram has already made it a mission to compete with TikTok by announcing Reels in August 2020. Reels is a short-form video feature on Instagram that lets users produce material with superimposed audio and augmented reality effects, similar to what TikTok users did.
Video is driving massive growth across all major social media platforms. This could indicate that Instagram will make additional changes to Reels, IGTV, and video posts on the site, Mr. Mosseri emphasized.
The Facebook-owned company is also focusing on incorporating shopping-related functions. The epidemic hastened the transfer of business from physical to online by several years and Instagram has been attempting to capitalize on this trend.
